Baby Blues
by WynterSky
Summary: Team 7 convinces Kakashi to let them keep a baby found abandoned outside the village. Trouble is, none of them have the least clue what to do next. Possibly SasuSaku.
1. Chapter 1

[A/N: I actually didn't plan this out at all, it was just something silly I thought up and decided to see where it went. Oh well, have fun!]

It was a typical day for Team 7, as far as typical went. Kakashi had yet to turn up with whatever boring D-rank mission they had been assigned, and Sasuke had settled down to study while ignoring Naruto's attempts to woo Sakura.

"Hey, Sakura-chan, look what I found!"

Sasuke didn't even have to look up to picture the scene that was about to unfold. Naruto had just shoved something into Sakura's face, and, depending what it was, she would have one of two reactions. She would either simply ignore him and his proffered bunch of flowers, or scream bloody murder and punch him for trying to assault her with a frog (or snail, or garter snake; Naruto never really seemed to understand that she didn't like animals that weren't cute or fuzzy).

Strangely enough, neither of these things happened, and after a long period of silence, Sasuke looked over to see what was going on. As per usual, Kakashi was still nowhere to be seen, and Sakura and Naruto were kneeling in the long grass looking at...something.

"Where did you get this?" Sakura asked.

Naruto pointed vaguely towards the tree-lined edge of the training field. "Over there," he said. "Under a bush."

"But wasn't there anyone _nearby?_" Sakura's distraught tone was one Sasuke had thought she reserved for whenever she felt he had rejected her. This was quite often, so he was very familiar with it.

Somewhat curious (although he would never admit he actually cared what his worthless teammates were up to), he stood up and walked just close enough to see what they were looking at without it seeming like he was trying to see what they were looking at.

"What's _that_?" he gasped once he got a glimpse, forgetting that he was being discreet.

"A baby," Sakura replied, too dazed to realize that _Sasuke_ was talking to _her_.

Naruto, meanwhile, had clumsily picked up the baby, who was now trying to pull on the zipper of his jacket. "Can we keep it, Sakura-chan?" he asked.

"Of course we can't keep it!" Sakura cried. "It's got _parents, _for goodness' sake. And it's a 'she', I think."

Naruto looked from her to the baby and back again. "How can you tell?"

"She's wearing pink, dead-last," Sasuke pointed out.

Glaring, Naruto started to say something, but before he could get the words out, Kakashi poofed onto the scene. "Sorry I'm late," he said, "but I ran into a—" he stopped short before he could finish whatever blatant lie he had made up this time. "Well, well, you three _have_ been busy. Where did this come from, Naruto?"

"She was in the woods," Naruto explained. "One of my clones tripped over her so I went to look and found her under a bush. Can we keep her, Kakashi-sensei, please?"

"No," Kakashi replied firmly. "Unquestionably not. Come along, we'll drop her off at the orphanage. They'll be able to find out if anyone's missing a baby."

"No!" Naruto protested. "We can't just abandon her like that! The orphanage is horrible!"

"It's not horrible," Kakashi said. "Konoha has a very nice orphanage, you're just biased. Now, give her here."

Kakashi's attempt to relieve Naruto of the baby only made him cling to her tighter. Bothered by the commotion, the baby began to wail. "See?" Naruto said, raising his voice to be heard over the cries. "She doesn't want to go to the orphanage either."

"But—"

While Sasuke usually made a point of never agreeing with anything Naruto had to say, he didn't much relish the idea of leaving her at the orphanage either. His own stint in it had been very short but distinctly unpleasant. "I don't see why we can't keep her," he said.

Kakashi sighed. "Sakura, please tell me you don't think we should keep her."

Of course, once Sasuke had spoken, Sakura's opinion was assured. "Of _course_ we should keep her!" she squealed, and Sasuke shuddered to think of the domestic fantasies she must be cooking up.

"All right, fine," Kakashi surrendered. "Our next mission will be to care for Whatever-her-name-is-chan and find her parents. Come on, we'll go set it up with the Hokage."

Naruto cheered. Sakura smiled and edged closer to Sasuke. Sasuke tried to pretend he didn't really care, but was actually pleased.

**OOOOOOO**

"Deidara, where is it?"

"Where is what?" Deidara asked, trying to smile innocently.

"The baby, you idiot! Now, where is she?"

"Oh, that. I kind of...dropped it, un."

"You _what?_" Konan snarled, making Deidara cringe and start backing furtively towards the door. "You'd think the _one_ time I have you babysit without Sasori you'd at least have the decency not to pull a stunt like this!...Oi, get back here!" Deidara jumped, snatching his hand away from the doorknob. "Where were you, and how high up?" Konan demanded.

"Over Konoha, I think, and it wasn't that high, really, un. It's just that…she wouldn't sleep, you know, so I thought that maybe if…eep!"

Deidara fled, shutting the door as several dozen paper kunai and shuriken thudded into the solid wood.

"Itachi!" Konan called, pouring herself a cup of tea to calm her nerves. "I need you to find something for me," she explained when he opened the office door. "It's very important."

[A/N: I dunno, utter randomness. I wanted to write something about pre-bad-stuff Team 7. This probably won't be more than a few chapters long.]


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

"Well, now that's settled," Kakashi said as they walked out of the Hokage tower. The Hokage had generously offered to pay the 'Take care of the baby and find her parents' mission fee himself, because Team 7 didn't have enough money on hand. Besides, paying themselves would be rather redundant.

By this point, Sakura was holding the baby, and was clearly plotting how she could use her to get Sasuke to pay attention to her. Sasuke, noticing the dangerous gleam in Sakura's eyes, made sure that both Naruto and Kakashi were between them.

"Hey, hey, what are we going to call her?" Naruto asked.

Sakura examined the baby's clothing for a tag. "That's right," she said, "I can't find anything with a name on it."

"I know, we should call her _Ramen!_" Naruto shouted.

"Ramen isn't even a name," Sasuke retorted. "How about Mikoto?"

"I think she looks like a Yuki," Sakura said, daring to disagree with Sasuke for once.

"Sayuri," Kakashi said firmly as the three of them began to argue. "Now, who is she going to stay with?"

None of them had thought of that. For a while, they just stared at each other. Sakura was the first to break the silence.

"Naruto found her..."

"Wh-what?" Naruto gasped, looking terrified. "I can't take care of a baby! I've never even been able to take care of the goldfish I've won at the festivals! B-besides, there's barely even enough room for _me_ in my apartment."

"There'd be more room if you'd _clean_ in once in a while," Sasuke grumbled quietly. The few times Team 7 had held post-mission meetings in Naruto's apartment it had been barely recognizable as a living space. Naruto didn't have _furniture,_ he had elaborate constructs of empty instant ramen cups and pocky boxes.

"Sakura's a girl, why can't she take Sayuri-chan?" Naruto asked.

"I'd like to," Sakura confessed, "but I don't think my mother would want me to. She's busy enough at the telephone switchboard as it is."

Both of them turned to Sasuke. "You have a nice big house," Sakura pointed out.

"Wh-what?" Sasuke spluttered. "But I _can't_!" He turned to Kakashi. "Sensei, you're the responsible adult here, shouldn't you take her?"

Kakashi lowered his book. "I'm sorry, what?"

Sasuke sighed. Much as he would like to, he could not in good conscience foist the baby on Kakashi. Considering how late their sensei was to training sessions, expecting him to remember to take care of a baby would end in disaster. "Okay, fine, she can stay at my house."

"Don't worry, Sasuke-kun, I'll help you!" Sakura simpered.

That was exactly what Sasuke had been afraid of. Before he could protest, however, Sakura had thrust Sayuri into his arms.

"Nono, not like that," she said, seeing his attempt to hold Sayuri while coming into as little actual contact with her as possible. "You have to support her. Like this," she instructed, pushing his hands into the proper positions. "There! Sensei," she said, turning to Kakashi, "I know the Hokage paid you in advance, so could we have the money, please? Sasuke-kun and I are going to go _shopping_." She breathed the last word dreamily and Sasuke shuddered inwardly. Kakashi shrugged and handed over a wad of bills.

"Hey, what about me?" Naruto protested. "Can't I come with you, Sakura-chan? I found Sayuri-chan, you know!"

Sakura ignored him and dragged Sasuke away towards the market. If he hadn't been holding Sayuri, Sasuke would have fled. He hoped Naruto would follow them, but there was no such luck.

**OOOOOOO**

After they had been through three stores, Sasuke decided he would never complain about D-rank missions being dull again. He felt completely numbed, and even Sakura's coos of "Oh, look, isn't this just _adorable, _Sasuke-kun!" seemed to be coming from a long distance away. The only sensation he could feel at the moment was an intense cramp in the arm underneath Sayuri's surprisingly heavy little body. She was now awake and chewing on the collar of his shirt, but he tried to disregard that.

"I think that's enough clothes for her," Sakura said finally, examining her purchases. Sasuke sighed with relief at the thought of finally being able to go home and rest. "Let's go get some formula and a baby bottle next," she continued, forcing Sasuke to resign himself to yet more shopping.

Thankfully, formula and baby bottles were sufficiently all alike that it didn't take nearly as long as the clothing had. While Sakura usually agreed with everything he said, she had apparently appointed herself 'sage of all wisdom in baby-related matters' and as such, had decided that Sayuri deserved the pinkest, frilliest, buttons-and-bows-bestooned-est little baby boudoir in the village, despite Sasuke's protests that _he_ had five shirts exactly the same style and colour and couldn't they do that for Sayuri, too? It wasn't as if she was actually old enough to care what she was dressed in, after all.

"Come on, let's find the toys!" Sakura said cheerfully, tossing three baby bottles and a canister of powdered formula into the cart next to a large package of diapers and a pacifier. Sasuke stared in wonder as she balanced herself on the bar and propelled herself down the aisle. Clearly she had depths of stamina he could only imagine, Sasuke thought as he trailed wearily after her, shifting Sayuri's weight a little in an attempt to relieve the cramp.

He lost sight of her going through the nursery furniture section. While he tried to track her chakra signature, there were too many other people in the store for this to be successful, so he ended up searching the old-fashioned way, working his way through each aisle in turn.

On his way through an aisle lined with teething toys, he suddenly found himself face-to-face with Yamanaka Ino. Seeing the baby he was holding, her eyes went wide with horror. She gasped and spluttered for several seconds before finally finding her voice. "Sa...Sasuke?"

"Oh, _there_ you are, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura said at the same time, coming up behind him.

"Billboard...brow?" Ino whimpered. "You...you..._Sasuke how could you!_" she shrieked, and fled from the store.

Sayuri chose this moment to start wailing, and Sasuke decided he really, _really_ didn't want to know what wrong conclusion Ino had just come to.

[A/N: The baby is named after enka singer Ishikawa Sayuri, who I happened to be listening to while writing this chapter.]


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

Sayuri was surprisingly loud for such a small thing, and Sasuke froze helplessly until Sakura took matters, and Sayuri, into her own hands.

"It's okay, shh, shh," she said softly, gently rocking back and forth. "_Odoma bon-giri bon-giri/Bon kara sakya oran-do..._" Sakura did not have an exceptional singing voice, as it was light and rather breathy, but it was soothing and pleasant enough to listen to, and Sayuri's earsplitting wails gradually died down into unhappy sobs. "She's probably just hungry," Sakura said once it was quiet enough that they could hear each other. "Let's hurry and get her back to your house."

"How did you do that?" Sasuke asked, disregarding his eternal vow never to start a conversation with Sakura.

"Do what?" Sakura asked, handing Sayuri back to Sasuke and pushing the cart towards the front of the store.

"Making Sayuri stop crying like that," Sasuke explained, holding Sayuri gingerly as he was afraid the slightest jolt would start her up again.

"Oh, that. I used to have a babysitting job, before I graduated from the academy. Sayuri-chan's actually very good compared to some of the babies I took care of."

**OOOOOOO**

Shortly, they were standing in front of the gate of the Uchiha Compound. Since Sasuke's hands were full with Sayuri, Sakura was carrying the seven bags of clothes. She had complained a little, but Sasuke had pointed out most unsympathetically that they didn't need to get _nearly_ so many clothes, so she didn't say anything more.

"So...this is your place, huh?" Sakura stared through the gate at the wide expanse of the main square, which was still impressive though rather overgrown with weeds. "It's big."

"It's empty," Sasuke replied coldly. "You can put the bags down there, I'll get them after I put Sayuri inside." He started down the cobbled walkway to his own house, only to find that Sakura was following him. "I said, _I'll get them_," he snapped. "You can _leave_," he added pointedly.

Sakura shrugged, and dropped the bags to the ground. "Alright then, Sasuke-_kun_, I'll be going. Feel free to call me if you have any problems." Her long pink tresses tossed as she whirled around and stalked off with the most offended air she could produce.

Sasuke turned away as she disappeared through the gate, and headed into the house. As he stepped into the living room, however, he realized that he had a problem: he didn't have anywhere to put Sayuri down, and if he couldn't put her down, he couldn't go back for the bags. He almost went back and called Sakura, but decided that he had had quite enough of her for one day (even if she hadn't been as bad as usual). Besides, he had learned the hard way never to encourage a fangirl.

Sayuri was beginning to fuss again by this point, so he tried to rock her the way Sakura had been doing while doing his best to think of a solution to his problem. Once he could see dark clouds beginning to cover the sky through the open door, he gave up trying to think of a _good_ solution and settled for the first one he thought of. Shoving the laundry room door open with his shoulder, he nestled Sayuri in a pile of dirty towels and bolted for the door. Unsurprisingly, she began to wail as soon as she realized Sasuke wasn't holding her anymore, but he ignored it as he ran outside and snatched up the bags, making it back into the house just as the first drops began to fall.

Sayuri continued wailing. Sasuke wished there were something he could do about it (what were the neighbours going to think?), but he couldn't pick her up and prepare formula at the same time. As he rummaged through the bags looking for the can of formula, a small, unusual-looking object fell out of one and tumbled to the floor. He bent to pick it up, and examined it curiously. He wasn't exactly sure _what_ it was, or how it was supposed to be used. It had a little nipple on it, like the baby bottles did, but the curved plastic piece on the back didn't look as if it was supposed to be attached to anything. Turning it over thoughtfully, he suddenly remembered having seen something like this once before, when one of his fourth-cousins was showing off her new baby. Now if he could only figure out what the trick to it was...

Quickly retrieving the can of formula and putting it on the kitchen counter, Sasuke went back to the laundry room. As soon as he opened the door again, Sayuri's wails redoubled in volume and he rushed to pick her up, nearly stumbling over a pile of folded dark blue shirts as he did so. Carrying her gingerly back to the kitchen, he picked up the mysterious object and deftly inserted the rubber nipple into Sayuri's mouth as she took a breath between wails.

The silence was so instantaneous that Sasuke was afraid he'd done something wrong and _broken_ her, but when he looked down, Sayuri was clutching his shirt peacefully, with scarcely a trace of her previous tantrum left. Intrigued, Sasuke examined the little whatsit for seals, or even a genjutsu, because surely it wasn't supposed to work that fast (whatever it was)?

It seemed harmless enough, so he looked around to find a place to set Sayuri down until he could get a bottle of formula mixed up.

**OOOOOOO**

[A/N: Sasuke's going to learn the hard way that turning away your only source of baby know-how is a Very Bad Idea. The song Sakura was singing is the Itsuki Lullaby. Look it up on youtube, it's very pretty. Some of the little scenes in this are actually from a genderflipped Sasuke fic that Will Not Be Written, but that's enough on that subject.]


	4. Chapter 4

[A/N: Finally got my act together and outlined this. I know how it ends now, yay! Baby Blues should have 9 or 10 chapters, but there might be more stories with Sayuri later if you like this, so tell me if you do! (yeah, I'm totally begging for reviews...)]

Chapter 4:

Feeding Sayuri happened to be simple enough, thankfully. Once he managed to figure out how to hold her and the bottle of formula at the same time, she took care of the rest. The formula was gone after only a few minutes, and Sayuri began to fuss as soon as she realized she wasn't getting any more. Sasuke was fairly sure he'd given her quite enough; he was trying to feed her, not drown her, after all. He stood up and tried rocking her gently until she stopped fussing, then held her with one arm while he tried to find something to eat for himself. What with all the excitement of the morning, he hadn't had anything to eat since before Team 7 had gathered for their training.

Luckily, there were some leftover onigiri in the refrigerator. They were a bit dry, and rice fell all over the kitchen floor as he ate one, but they would have to suffice for now. The rain had stopped by now, as it had only been a brief summer shower, so he opened a few windows to take advantage of the cool, fresh breeze that was ruffling the tops of the trees. Sayuri blinked as the soft wind fluffed up her fine hair. Sasuke wasn't quite sure what color her hair was; there wasn't really enough to tell but it seemed reddish.

He was just thinking that it might be safe to put Sayuri down somewhere when she began to whimper again, quickly escalating to full-fledged cries. "What _now?_" Sasuke asked in frustration, rocking her as she rubbed at her eyes with tiny fists. He tried patting her on the back, which seemed to help. However, before he could congratulate himself on finally beginning to figure out how babies worked, Sayuri made a very disturbing hacking sound, and something warm and wet and sticky began to flow down the inside of his shirt.

While Sasuke couldn't quite see what had just happened since Sayuri was in the way, he decided not to wait to find out. Hurrying into the laundry room, he again deposited Sayuri on a pile of laundry (he never could figure out how the laundry still piled up, since he was the only one producing it) and pulled his shirt off to inspect the damage. As Sasuke himself had gotten the worst of it, the shirt was relatively unscathed. However, with Sayuri around, Sasuke couldn't leave her alone long enough to take a bath or a shower, which caused a bit of a problem. Eventually, he settled on doing the best he could over the laundry sink.

He had just finished when there was a knock on the door. Grumbling to himself, he scooped up Sayuri and headed to answer it. In the few years since he'd started living in the compound again, he'd scared off almost every door-to-door salesperson in the town, but there were still a few diehards that turned up once in a while. Stomping through the entry to the door, he banged it open.

"I don't want—"

"We brought—"

Sasuke and Sakura both stopped short, staring at each other in confusion. Sakura's face slowly turned much pinker than Sasuke had ever thought was possible in real life. Finally realizing the problem, namely that _he had his shirt off in front of a fangirl he would never hear the end of it_, Sasuke shoved Sayuri into Sakura's arms and fled back inside. Luckily, Sakura and Naruto they didn't follow him. The other two members of his team were tolerable on missions, he supposed, but he really wished they would get it through their heads that he didn't want to be _friends_ with them! He couldn't afford friends, not until Itachi was dead.

Now that he was more suitably attired, he headed back to the door, but only because he was sure that they'd never go away unless he told them to. Besides, he'd left Sayuri out there.

He opened the door and immediately felt his heart was going to stop. Somehow, Naruto had gotten Sayuri away from Sakura, and he was _throwing_ her. It seemed to Sasuke that it took hours to get there and snatch her away from Naruto. "Dobe, what do you think you're doing?"

"What do _you think you'r_e doing? She likes it, you know!"

"I don't care whether she likes it! Stay away from her!" Sasuke shouted back, crouching defensively around the baby. Couldn't Naruto see how tine and fragile she was?

Sayuri chose this moment to begin wailing yet again.

"Now see what you did!" Naruto yelled.

"And how is this my fault?" Sasuke retorted.

"If you hadn't grabbed her like that—"

"If you hadn't been throwing her like that—"

"Both of you! _Shut! Up!"_

__

Sakura's sudden outburst startled both boys into silence. Calmly, she took charge of the situation. "Naruto, where did you put the thermos of miso?"

"Um, over there-ish somewhere, you know?" Naruto waved vaguely towards the porch.

Sakura sighed. "Go get it and put it in the kitchen. Sasuke, you go make some rice. I'll take care of Sayuri-chan; this has been a long day for her."

While ordinarily Sasuke wouldn't trust Sakura with anything he considered important, she did know a lot more about babies than he did. He allowed Sakura to take Sayuri from his arms, but hovered around them all the way back to the house. She didn't seem to mind.

An hour later, he was willing to admit that his teammates had actually been of some use. Sayuri had been fed, bathed, changed, dressed in one of those ridiculous frou-frou outfits, and Sakura had made sure he would know how to do those things when they became necessary again (although he could do without the frou-frou outfits). He'd actually managed to have something to eat for dinner besides stale riceballs, and Naruto...had behaved himself.

Still, it was rather a relief when the door closed behind them and he could have the house to himself again. Well, almost to himself, he remembered as he held Sayuri close, feeling her soft warmth.

[A/N: FYI, the spitup-down-the-collar thing is based on trufax. Luckily I had foreseen that possibility and wore something washable before helping out in the church nursery, but it didn't make it any more pleasant. I'm going on vacation the first two weeks of August, so no updates during that time.]


	5. Chapter 5

[I'm planning to start a new fic sometime in the near future. If you want to have a say in which one, please vote on the poll in my profile!]

Chapter 5:  
>After Sakura and Naruto were gone, preferably for some time, Sasuke dropped tiredly into a chair. To his surprise, he could see the sun setting outside.<p>

"We've had a long day, haven't we, Sayuri," he remarked absently. Sayuri, of course did not reply, blinking up at him drowsily. "Come on," Sasuke continued, "let's get you to bed."

He wasn't exactly sure how to go about this. While he knew babies generally belonged in cradles, Sakura hadn't purchased anything that looked like a cradle during the Shopping Trip From Hell. He poked through the stuff again to see if there was anything he had missed, but there definitely was not anything there that he could put a baby in.

Briefly, he considered getting a large mixing bowl from the kitchen and putting her in that, but concluded that was a bad idea.

"Maybe you can sleep in my room," Sasuke suggested, then realized what he was doing. "Why am I even talking to you? You don't know what I'm saying."

Sayuri yawned as she cuddled into his chest, making a sleepy little sigh.

"Maybe you're lucky not to know anything yet," Sasuke mused. "You can't hate anyone, either."

Finally, he found some futons in a closet and spread them in the master bedroom. He kept this room scrupulously clean, but never set foot in it otherwise. Still, he hoped Mother and Father wouldn't mind the intrusion, wherever they were.

After making a nest for Sayuri to sleep in out of some blankets, Sasuke tried to get her into one of the little sleepers that Sakura had purchased. It was a lot harder than she had made it look, but he finally managed it, although Sayuri was considerably less sleepy than she had been when he started.

"There," Sasuke said as he deposited her in the nest, "You be good now, okay?"

He patted her head gently, then darted outside in the hopes of getting some training in before it got too dark. Sayuri's plans did not coincide with his, however, as Sasuke could hear her beginning to wail before he had even managed to finish throwing his second spread of kunai.

_She's probably lonely,_ he told himself as he headed back to the house. _And you know what that's like, don't you?_

Sighing, he picked up Sayuri and carried her back to the front of the house where all the things Sakura had bought were. "I can't carry you all the time, you know," he said as he began to browse through the pile of toys. They were all, of course, pink and varying degrees of sparkly, but he managed to find a butterfly with crinkly wings that wasn't too garish.

Sayuri grabbed it as soon as Sasuke held it in front of her. "Well, that was easier than I thought. Let's try this again, shall we?"

Once Sayuri was distracted by the toy, she deigned to be left alone long enough for Sasuke to get some halfway decent training in. It was nothing like what he used to do _before_, with…someone, but it would do for now.

He was exhausted by the time he dropped onto the futons beside Sayuri.

**OOOOOOO**

What seemed like only a few minutes later, Sasuke awoke to the now familiar sound of Sayuri's wails. "Hey, shush," he said, scooping her out of the blanket nest and rocking her until she quieted. "Now," he continued, handing her the crinkly butterfly again, "I can't do this all night, so go to sleep now."

Sayuri cooed contentedly as she chewed on one of the butterfly's wings.

"All right," Sasuke said, lying back down and pulling the covers over his head, "maybe now I can get some sleep."

Sayuri had other plans. After the fourth time she woke him up in as many hours, Sasuke decided something must be _wrong_ with the baby and called Sakura.

The phone rang several times on Sakura's end before it was finally picked up. "Mfwha?" Sakura said blearily. "'s late."

"Sakura—" Sasuke began, but didn't get any further than that.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura shrieked.

"_Is he finally calling for a midnight tryst?_" somebody said in the background. There was a smacking sound and a yelp, then Sakura came back on the line.

"Sorry about that," she said, sounding marginally more awake now. "Jirou's such a brat sometimes. What did you want?"

"Sakura—" Sayuri began to fuss again and Sasuke waved the pink butterfly toy in front of her face to distract her. "—when do they learn how to sleep?"

"Huh?" Sakura was obviously not a morning person; at least not a three-o'clock in the morning person.

"Babies," Sasuke elucidated. "When do they learn how to sleep?"

"Uh…well, I think Sayuri's old enough to be sleeping through the night, at least almost—"

"Then _why isn't she?_"

Sayuri continued to fuss and Sasuke put the phone down to pick her up, retrieving it just in time to not hear whatever Sakura was saying. "What was that again? Ow, Sayuri!" Sayuri had apparently decided that Sasuke was not paying her nearly enough attention and had grabbed a fistful of his bangs.

"I said, she's probably figured out that she's not at her own house with her parents. The one time I had to take care of a baby for more than a day, he cried the first two nights at my house, then finally settled down."

"Okay…" Two nights of this? At least it was the weekend now, but what if Kakashi decided to give them a mission come Monday? "So how do I get her to sleep?"

Sakura probably shrugged: there was a pause on the her end, in any case. "You could try feeding her. If that doesn't work, you might just have to wait it out. I could come over, if you—"

"No thank you," Sasuke said firmly. "Goodbye."

"Well, okay. 'Bye."

As he tried to convince Sayuri to go back to sleep, Sasuke almost caved and called Sakura again, but just managed to hold himself back. Even if she didn't especially mind Sakura, he couldn't afford to set a precedent or he would be besieged by the other members of his fanclub.

**OOOOOOO**

Sayuri finally went back to sleep, but woke up two more times before Sasuke finally gave up shortly after sunrise. When he left the bedroom, she began to cry, but he ignored her until he had a bottle of formula ready.

After eating, Sayuri was in a much better mood, deigning to be dressed in one of the less ridiculous of the frilly pink outfits and laid on a blanket on the porch while Sasuke practiced.

He was pulling a just-off-center kunai out of one of the targets (it wasn't his fault he'd been distracted when Sayuri dropped her toy) when the seal he'd set to alert him when anyone else entered the compound went off. He shook his head to clear the buzz, then scooped up Sayuri and her butterfly and went to see who was visiting. If he'd known the compound would get this busy, he'd never had brought a baby there.

When he got to the door of his house, Shikamaru and Chouji were already halfway there from the gate. Ino was dragging behind, looking sulky. When Sasuke opened the door, she began to perk up, but started pouting again when she saw Sayuri. Sasuke was sure this had something to do with her and Sakura's rivalry, but couldn't figure out how.

"Hello," Sasuke said as Shikamaru and Chouji arrived at the door. "What do you want?"

"We wanted to see—" Shikamaru began.

"The baby!" Chouji interrupted.

"—what Ino's being so troublesome about," Shikamaru finished.

Ino glared at all four of them from several strides down the walkway.

"Can I hold her?" Chouji asked, reaching out to stroke Sayuri's cheek with surprisingly gentle fingers. Sayuri smiled and cooed, and Sasuke found himself getting jealous, much to his own surprise. He began to tighten his hold on Sayuri and pull away from the other boy, then relented. Chouji did seem to know what he was doing, after all.

"Okay…" he said, shifting Sayuri into a position where Chouji could take her easily. "Careful!"

Sayuri grabbed a fistful of Chouji's hair as soon as she was settled into his arms, but he didn't seem to mind, gently bouncing her in his arms until she began to laugh. She hadn't laughed for Sasuke yet.

At this point, Ino threw her arms up in disgust and stalked out of the compound.

"Babies are so troublesome," Shikamaru remarked. "You'll never see me taking care of a baby, that's for sure."

Chouji and Sasuke ignored him.

[A/N: I always pictured Chouji as being good with little kids. Also, Shikamaru had better watch out for something called Irony in about three years or so…You may notice that this chapter was a bit longer than the previous. That is because I now have an outline. Therefore, there will probably be more of Itachi relatively soon.]


	6. Chapter 6

[A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to update this! I hope you enjoy the chapter.]

Chapter 6:

Sasuke found himself glad when Sayuri began to cry and he had an excuse to take her back. He quickly felt guilty about this when he saw how disappointed Chouji looked, but pushed that feeling down.

After Chouji and Shikamaru left to catch up with Ino, Sasuke found himself at somewhat of a loss as to what to do with himself. Normally on weekends, he would eat breakfast at home, pack a lunch, and practice at one of the outer training fields until dark. With Sayuri to think about, he would have to change his plans.

Sayuri was still fussing, so he handed her the butterfly and rocked her for a bit until she settled down. He was just about to see what he had in the cupboards at the moment when the gate seal buzzed him again.

Sasuke opened the door just as Sakura staggered onto the porch, carrying a strangely bundled-up contraption with wheels sticking out all over the place. "Sasuke-kun!" she greeted him, looking proud of herself. "Look what I found in the attic!"

Sasuke stared blankly at the object as Sakura set it on the porch. "What is it?"

"It's our old pram. I just remembered playing dollies with it and thought we could take Sayuri around and see if anybody's missing a baby. I even made lunch, see?" She slid an insulated bag off her shoulder and handed it to Sasuke.

Sasuke took it and went back inside to put it in the refrigerator. Sakura stayed on the porch, although she was clearly dying to come in. Sasuke had expected her to barge past him and start giving orders. "You can come in," he said finally.

"Okay. Where should I put the pram? I'm really not sure how to open it up anymore, it's been years since I played with it."

"Just leave it out there. Once Sayuri's ready to go we can figure it out. Where were you thinking of going?" Sasuke asked, laying a blanket down on the living room floor and putting Sayuri on it with her butterfly. She had been quite vigorous in her love for it, but it looked sturdy enough to take three little baby girls chewing on its sparkly wings.

Sakura sat down by the blanket and began to trace circles on Sayuri's tummy with her finger. Distracted from the butterfly, Sayuri soon grabbed hold of Sakura's finger and began to chew on that. "I was thinking we could try the orphanage first," Sakura said, ignoring Sayuri's determined gnawing, "and then the hospital, and the public archives. Is there anywhere else?"

"Maybe the immigrations office," Sasuke suggested, joining Sakura on the floor. "And the gate guards' logbook, since we found her outside the village. One of them might have seen something."

"That's a good idea," Sakura said. Sasuke sighed inwardly. Sakura was a fangirl, of course she would think it was a good idea. She had been getting better about it lately, though. "And after that we can get Sayuri some clothes that aren't pink," he finished firmly.

"But she looks good in pink!" Sakura protested. "It goes with her hair!"

"What hair? She hardly has any!" Sasuke retorted.

"She has auburn hair," Sakura informed him blithely. "I can tell. And pink goes with auburn."

Sasuke wasn't exactly sure what auburn was, or why pink went with it, so he knew that he wasn't going to do well in an argument about that subject. Suddenly, the perfect rebuttal sprang to mind.

"Sayuri is currently an honorary member of the Uchiha Clan," he stated firmly. "As such, she must wear the Uchiha Clan colors."

Sakura looked disappointed, but since she couldn't risk saying anything bad about the Uchiha Clan she had to agree. Sasuke smiled inwardly; he was beginning to use fangirl-ism to his own advantage. "Let's go," he said. "We can stop by Naruto's apartment on the way to our first stop."

While Sakura pouted as she realized she wouldn't be alone with the object of her affections, she was quickly distracted by futile attempts to unfold the stroller. Sasuke came over to help, but they soon figured out that the contraption was quite stuck from being left in an attic for years. With both of them tugging with all their strength, it finally burst open, making them fall to the ground at the release of pressure. Sayuri began to fuss at the loud noise, and Sasuke picked her up while Sakura dusted off the stroller.

"I should make some formula if we're going to be gone for a while…" Sasuke remarked, but Sakura beat him to it.

"Oh, no, you stay with Sayuri-chan, I'll get everything together!" she assured him blithely.

…

A short time later, they were on their way. Sakura was pushing the stroller: it was a very frilly sort of stroller, so if Sakura wanted to push it, Sasuke wasn't about to prevent her.

Naruto emerged from his apartment at Sasuke's insistent knocking. "I was just eating breakfast, you know!" he protested. Sasuke had already guessed this, as the entire apartment smelled of instant ramen.

"We're going to see if anyone knows anything about Sayuri. Hurry up," Sasuke said curtly, before rejoining Sakura in the street.

Naruto followed after a few seconds later, still slurping up the last few noodles out of his cup of ramen. "Where are we going?" he asked as he caught up to Sasuke and Sakura.

"The orphanage, the hospital…" Sakura listed all the places she and Sasuke discussed, ticking them off on her fingers.

"But what if we do if someone wants to take Sayuri-chan away from us?" Naruto demanded.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Sasuke replied. Considering where they had found Sayuri, and under what circumstances, he didn't think they had much to worry about.

…

At the orphanage, not only did the staff deny knowing anything about Sayuri, but they seemed very pleased that Team 7 was taking care of her and not leaving her there. While there were not exactly a plethora of orphans in the village, there were certainly enough that one more could be a bit of a problem.

When they went to the hospital, the nurses assured them that all the babies born around the time Sayuri would have been were healthy and accounted for.

Things played out like this everywhere they went. Nobody had any clue who Sayuri was, who her parents were, or how she could have gotten to Konoha.

"You…you don't think…her parents just abandoned her, do you?" Sakura said finally, as they left the immigrations office. It had proved to be another dead end.

"No way!" Naruto gasped, horrified. "Who would do that to something like Sayuri-chan?"

Sasuke didn't reply. He had thought for a while that Sayuri had been abandoned, but obviously saying that out loud would only worry Naruto even more. "Let's just stop by the gate guardposts and then call it a day," he suggested. "Sayuri's probably due for a nap in any case." Of course they wouldn't find anything, but at least he would have an excuse to go home…


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

The guardposts, as Sasuke had expected, proved to be just as unfruitful as everything else had been. That is, until they got to the last one. The two chuunin manning (or rather, womanning) the station said that they hadn't been there during the day or night before Sayuri turned up in the training field, but allowed Team 7 to look through the logbooks. Sasuke had a feeling that this was partially because they wanted to play with Sayuri, but he wasn't about to complain.

"Hey, hey, look at this!" Naruto shouted after a few minutes. He and Sasuke had quarreled over who read the log, ending up taking turns. Sasuke came over from making sure Sayuri wasn't mishandled and read the entry Naruto was pointing to.

"They saw a _giant bird_?"

"Yeah, isn't it cool?" Naruto beamed.

Sasuke ran one hand through his hair in frustration. "And what has that got to do with a baby, hmm?"

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno. I just thought it was interesting."

Snatching the book from Naruto's grasp (ignoring his protests), Sasuke read the entry in question. "It says that the bird was seen passing over at 7 in the morning, two days ago. That would have been shortly before we arrived at the training field."

"Do you think the bird might have dropped Sayuri-chan here?" Sakura said. "But then, she could have some from anywhere!"

"I don't know," Sasuke replied. "It's the only lead so far, and bird summons aren't unknown—although why one of them would grab a baby and randomly drop her again, I don't know."

"But—" Sakura frowned. "When we found Sayuri-chan, there weren't any marks or rips in her blanket. If a bird had carried her off, wouldn't there be something like that?"

Sasuke sighed. "Then we're back to square one again. Come on, let's go. Sakura and I still have some shopping to do."

…

Naruto insisted on being allowed to come on this shopping trip, and Sasuke permitted it, if only to have another person to argue against Sayuri being forced to wear pink. Of course, Naruto favored orange, but there was only so much Sasuke could do about that. There wasn't a whole lot of orange baby clothing available, fortunately.

By the time they left, they had a much more sensible wardrobe for Sayuri; a few onesies with scattered patterns of frogs and chicks (courtesy of Naruto), two light blue dresses and several knit shirts of the same color (Sasuke had chosen these—there were no darker shades of blue available, in the girl baby clothes at least), and a double-breasted pink coat with a hood and matching mittens and booties (Sakura's sole contribution).

Sakura helped Sasuke put Sayuri down for a nap after they arrived back at his house with their purchases. Naruto was removing all the tags from the clothes when Kakashi poofed into the room.

"Hello, everyone!" he said cheerfully. "How are we today?"

"A lot better before you turned up," Sasuke grumbled. Sayuri had woken up with Kakashi's abrupt appearance, and was now loudly signifying her displeasure.

"…Ah," Kakashi said, quickly taking in the situation. "I see. Well, I just thought I should let you know that tomorrow I will have a C-rank mission for us, so I want to see everyone bright and early!"

"What, another C-rank mission, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked. Sasuke could guess what was going through her mind.

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan, I have it on good authority that it will be an actual C-rank this time," Kakashi assured her.

"But what about Sayuri-chan?" Naruto protested.

"Well, have you been trying to find her parents?"

"We went everywhere that _should_ have had information on her, if anyone was looking," Sasuke replied. "No one had any idea who she was or where she could have come from."

"Yeah, yeah!" Naruto affirmed. "One of the guardposts saw a giant bird, but Sakura-chan said that Sayuri didn't have any claw marks in her blanket, so we don't know anything."

"Hmm…" Kakashi bent to look at Sayuri, who had gotten tired of crying at this point, since it wasn't doing her any good. She grabbed the edge of his mask, although he pulled her tiny fingers away before she could pull it off. "A giant bird, you say?"

"Yeah, but…it doesn't mean anything…does it?" Sakura asked.

"It depends. Did any of you happen to think that there might have been someone _riding_ the giant bird?"

The three genin looked at each other in consternation and Kakashi sighed. "Clearly you were not paying enough attention when summons were covered in the academy. You keep looking for clues in your free time, and I'll poke into this giant bird business a bit. I have access to some information that's rather more classified. Anyway, remember; tomorrow's a C-rank mission, so rest up!"

He vanished again. Sayuri stared curiously at the place where he had been standing before returning her attention to the butterfly.

"You know," Naruto said, "he never did say what we were supposed to do with Sayuri on the mission."

"Yeah…maybe we could get one of the other girls to babysit. Tenten might—"

"No," Sasuke said firmly. He didn't want anyone outside of Team 7 near Sayuri unless he could be nearby to make sure everything went according to his specifications. "You heard what Kakashi said, we need to get ready for the mission tomorrow."

Sakura sighed reluctantly, gently patting Sayuri on the head before heading out the door, Naruto in tow. "Bye-bye, Sayuri-chan. See you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun!"

"Sure," Sasuke said absently. He was already occupied with finding a solution to his latest problem. What was he supposed to do with Sayuri tomorrow? He couldn't leave her with anyone else, but how could he bring her along?


	8. Chapter 8

[A/N: Just so you know, I re-wrote some of Chapter 1, you should go look at it; the changes are a bit important to what goes on after this point.]

Chapter 8:

That night, Sayuri was just as uninterested in sleeping as she had been the night before. In desperation, Sasuke finally got out an old radio to see if there was any kind of music on that could distract her from crying. He hadn't used the radio in years, since _before_, and it took him a few minutes to figure out what all the buttons did.

When it finally did come on, it was on the last station that had been tuned into before Sasuke put it away, not wanting to see it again.

"_Jinsei iroiro…otoko mo iroiro…_"

Sasuke flinched, clutching Sayuri tighter as a flood of memories nearly overwhelmed him. That had been his mother's favorite song…he remembered her singing along with the radio, playfully pretending a wooden spoon was a microphone as she danced with him around the kitchen.

"_Onna datte iroiro sakimidareru no._"

Sasuke didn't even realize he was crying until he noticed that Sayuri's pink shirt was getting damp. Unhappy with how tightly Sasuke was holding her, Sayuri began to pout, pushing at his shoulder with tiny soft hands.

The song ended, and Sasuke chided himself for being so stupid as he brushed away the tears. Crying wouldn't do any good, he had to get stronger!

"_Anata kawari wa nai desu ka?_"

Sayuri yawned delicately as Sasuke set her in her little nest again and lay down beside her, one hand protectively covering her tiny form. He left the radio on; there was no one near enough to complain about it, anyway.

…

Itachi frowned as he slowly traced the thin whisper of chakra through the forest. Babies' chakra was usually indistinguishable from the natural chakra of the environment, in the same way that newborn deer had no scent, but the child he was looking for had inherited her father's unusual chakra patterns, giving Itachi just enough clues to follow her once he neared Konoha.

The forest thinned out, and Itachi followed the clearer trail to a small patch of shrubbery. While there was an indentation underneath just the right size, there was no baby there now. Someone must have found her.

Once he entered Konoha, the feedback from so many other people wiped out the baby girl's thin signature, so he had to do a bit of detective work.

By this point, it was late enough that the hospital had been closed, and Itachi evaded the few night staff left with ease. However, there was no record of an abandoned infant being admitted.

On a whim, he decided to have a look at the genin mission records, in case one of the teams had found her and gotten themselves assigned to watch her.

Of course, one of them had, and of course, it had to be the worst possible choice. How was he supposed to get Sayuri away from Team 7, especially without confronting Sasuke? Furthermore, where was she?

He started with Kakashi's apartment. It only took a quick glance through the window to rule that place out; it still baffled him that Kakashi had made jounin without, seemingly, having a clue how to clean. Itachi had managed to keep his room immaculate since before he made genin—of course, he didn't have to deal with the sprawling collection of _questionable_ literature that Kakashi did.

Naruto's apartment was not much better, although Itachi was intrigued by the boy's furniture, which had been carefully constructed out of instant ramen cups and boxes of pocky. Here, too, there was no sign of a baby being in residence.

He was much more hopeful as he investigated the Haruno residence. This was the most obvious choice, as it was the only household with two responsible adults present. However, he had no luck there either.

That left only one option, unfortunately. Leaping down from the tiled roof of the Haruno house, Itachi headed for the Uchiha compound.

The compound was still as he dropped into the long grass; far too still, and much more than the last time…Itachi quickly forced those thoughts away. He had to find the baby and get her away without alerting Sasuke, unless of course she was somewhere else entirely.

There was no such luck. The master bedroom window had been left open to permit the warm summer breeze to pass through, and as Itachi jumped up to silently perch on the sill, he saw exactly what he was looking for.

"…_shinda hito to wa onaji koto…_"

Itachi stiffened despite himself as he heard what the radio was playing. That was the last song he had heard his mother sing. Looking into the room again, he saw the baby nestled in a little bowl of blankets. Unfortunately, Sasuke had fallen asleep with one hand across the baby, and she was clutching one of his fingers with her delicate little hands.

There really wasn't any way to get her away without waking Sasuke. Itachi left the window with a sigh. He would have hated to spoil such a charming picture, anyway. He'd just have to try again later.

[A/N: It wouldn't be a Sasuke-centric fic without an angsty chapter, now would it? The three songs quoted in the chapter are 'Jinsei IroIro', 'Kita no Yado Kara' and 'Yozakura Oshichi'. I always pictured Uchiha Mikoto as an enka lover…]


	9. Chapter 9

[A/N: Needed a quick break from Cruel World, so I finished up this chapter. It's hard to write angsty stories, especially fast…]

Chapter 9:

"_Sakura, sakura, sayonara anta…_"

Sasuke awoke with a start. He thought he had sensed something moving outside, and got up to look out the window, being careful not to disturb Sayuri as he stood.

There was nothing to be seen outside. In any case, if anyone had been near the house they would have crushed down the grass that now grew tall and uncontrolled.

It had probably just been the wind ruffling the curtains, Sasuke decided as he lay back down with Sayuri. The soft warmth emanating from her little body was reassuring and he was asleep again almost immediately.

…

Sasuke awoke the next morning to the now-familiar sound of Sayuri loudly informing him that she was hungry. He shut the radio off—Sayuri drowned it out, anyway—and went into the kitchen to get a bottle ready. He had already turned the stove on before he remembered what else was going on that day.

While the bottle was warming up, he dressed Sayuri as quickly as he could in one of her new dresses and a pair of booties, then grabbed the pink coat as well, as it looked as if it would be cold. Sayuri was not very pleased with being rushed, but settled down once Sasuke gave her the bottle.

Feeding Sayuri while walking was not exactly easy, Sasuke quickly discovered as he headed towards the Hokage Tower, where they were to be briefed on the mission. Hopefully Kakashi wouldn't mind having her along; Sasuke couldn't very well leave her alone in the village, and he didn't trust anyone else with her.

To Sasuke's embarrassment, the ever-late Kakashi was already there when he arrived.

"What _happened_, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, rushing over. "Is Sayuri-chan all right? Why did you bring her?"

"Nothing happened," Sasuke replied. "I…nothing happened," he repeated, not wanting to admit that he had merely overslept. "Sayuri's fine, I just didn't want to leave her there."

"Sasuke-kun, I think we have a little misunderstanding here," Kakashi interrupted, appearing between him and Sakura. "Sayuri-chan isn't coming with us."

Sasuke glared obstinately. "I won't leave her in the village if I can't supervise her."

"Come on, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto wheedled, "it'll be fine! Can I hold her, Sasuke, huh?"

"I'm here too, you know," the Hokage interrupted as Team 7 began to argue. "And Sasuke, I don't think—"

"Well, if Sayuri has to stay, then I'm not going, either!" Sasuke snapped finally. The thought came to him that he could get in trouble for refusing a mission, not to mention back-talking the Hokage himself, but he had to keep Sayuri close so he could protect her.

"I see," the Hokage said. "Well, as there is little actual risk involved in this mission, I will permit it…but you might be more tactful about such requests in future," he said reprovingly, but Sasuke could tell that he wasn't really angry. "Kakashi, you and your team will be escorting a visiting noblewoman from here to a civilian town called Yubin, thirty miles to the east, and remain with her until the caravan she will continue on with arrives. Besides the usual pay for a C-rank mission, you will be reimbursed for food and lodging in Yubin. The client should be arriving momentarily."

Quite predictably, Sasuke thought, the door opened almost as soon as the Hokage finished speaking. "Suisen Ayumi," announced the chuunin who had escorted their client into the room.

Suisen Ayumi did not look like the sort of person who was accustomed to tramping long distances through the wilderness, so it was a good thing that there were actual roads (good ones, no less) to their destination, unlike Team 7's last escort mission. She was dripping with jewelry; several gold bangles adorned each wrist, a pearl necklace so long Sasuke could have walked a dog on it was wrapped four times around her neck, and massive jeweled pendants dangled from her ears. The expansive white fur coat she wore completed the picture.

Sakura squealed at the sight of the finery, but Naruto did not look very impressed. Sasuke shared his opinion; Ayumi scarcely looked as if she'd worked a day in her life. Hopefully she would change into something less ostentatious before they left, as her current wardrobe would be little more than bandit bait once they were on the road.

"Is this the escort?" Ayumi asked, a bit pointlessly. She sounded frighteningly like a grown-up version of Ino. "I asked for ninjas, not a bunch of brats!"

Sasuke closed his eyes and counted very slowly to ten in all the languages he knew. Naruto did not exhibit so much self-control, and Kakashi had to grab him by the back of the shirt to prevent him from attacking their client. Thankfully, Sayuri kept quiet, and Ayumi didn't seem to have noticed her yet.

"I'm not a brat!" Naruto shouted.

"You're sure acting like one," Sakura pointed out.

"Yes, Suisen-dono, this is the escort, and they _are_ ninjas," the Hokage said calmly. "They are some of the best escorts you could ask for, in fact, so kindly do not insult them."

"Very well," Ayumi huffed, running a hand through her impeccably curled hair. "I suppose I shall change into my travelling clothes, then."

She stalked out, her bracelets jingling as the immense fur coat swished around her.

"Is she for real?" Naruto asked as soon as the door closed.

"Do you think that coat is as soft as it looks?" Sakura said dreamily.

"Are we getting paid extra for this?" Sasuke inquired.

Kakashi sighed. "Yes, yes, and I don't think so, unfortunately. Come on, let's get this over with."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

As Team 7 headed for the gate leading out of Konoha towards Yubin, Sasuke took a brief detour to stop by the Uchiha compound in order to get the necessary things for taking care of Sayuri on the trip. It was summer, luckily, and the nights were relatively warm, which meant that he didn't have to burden himself down with blankets. He did take her pink coat however, just to be safe. Besides, it would cover up the garish patterns on the onesies Naruto picked out.

"Sasuke-kun!"

Sasuke looked up from his packing as he heard Sakura calling from the front door. "It's not locked!" he yelled back. Sakura had been to his house so many times since Sayuri turned up that he didn't even really count her as a fangirl anymore. As long as Ino didn't follow her in, he didn't mind having her around.

Sakura promptly pushed the door open and came in. "Sayuri-chan!" she cried, scooping up the baby from where Sasuke had left her with her toy while he packed. "How are you, huh? Does your butterfly taste good?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You do know she won't answer your questions, right?"

"And hello to you too, Sasuke-kun. Hey, I brought you something," she added, tossing him a bundle of fabric. Sasuke had both hands busy so he couldn't catch it, and ducked just too late to keep it from hitting him in the face. "Oops…sorry," Sakura mumbled, blushing.

Sasuke rolled his eyes as he tugged the fabric off his head. "What is this?" he asked, untangling it. It was roughly square-shaped, and had a lot of straps.

"It's a _mei tai_," Sakura explained. "I was talking to my mom about Sayuri and she said that maybe you would want it."

"I see," Sasuke said. "But what does it do, besides attempting to strangle me?"

"Well, you tie it on, and then you put the baby in, and then you can carry her and still have your hands free." Sakura made several demonstrative motions, but as she performed these while still holding Sayuri with both hands Sasuke couldn't make much of these. "I thought it might come in handy since you're bringing Sayuri along on our mission."

Sasuke stared dubiously at the mei tai, then tugged testingly on the straps. None of the stitching seemed to be inclined to give, so it was probably safe to trust Sayuri to. "All right," he said, "Show me how it works."

It took Sakura several minutes to actually fasten Sayuri and Sasuke into the mei tai, mostly because they wasted a lot of time bickering as to whether Sayuri should go on the back or the front. It was not, Sasuke told himself firmly, because he was getting jittery having Sakura so close to him. He just wasn't used to people touching him outside of fights.

"Okay," Sakura said finally, crossing the last two straps across his back, bringing them to the front and tying them carefully around Sayuri, "I think that's good to go. It's not too tight or anything?"

"No, it's fine," Sasuke replied, judging how Sayuri was taking it. She seemed content enough nestled in the padded little pocket formed by the mei tai, and he tucked her butterfly in beside her in case she decided that she wanted to chew on something. He most definitely did not need her chewing on his shirt in front of their client.

"Good. Let's go, or we'll be later than Kakashi-sensei!"

"Wait a second," Sasuke said before she could get out of the house, "What about my pack? And Sayuri's things?"

With a bit of fiddling, Sasuke managed to carry the smaller bag containing Sayuri's necessities, but he would definitely not be able to carry his own pack. He hated to ask for help from anyone, but it didn't look as if he would be able to avoid it this time. "Do you think some of my things could go in your pack?" he asked.

"Sure," Sakura said, bending down to pick it up. "What's essential?"

A short time later, the contents of the packs were redistributed well enough to mostly satisfy both Sakura and Sasuke. This done, they had to rush to reach the gate. Fortunately, the Uchiha compound was nearby, as Sasuke didn't want to risk taking to the rooftops while carrying Sayui. The mei tai seemed secure enough, but something in Sasuke's head insisted that it was just fabric and continually set off warning bells as he ran through the streets.

"And here you are at last," Kakashi drawled as they rushed up to the gate. "I'm really surprised that I managed to get here before you did."

Sasuke couldn't think of anything smart to say in return, so he settled for a shrug instead.

"You're actually bringing Sayuri-chan?" Naruto gasped as he noticed the baby in the mei tai.

"What else was I supposed to do, leave her behind?" Sasuke retorted icily. "It's not like this is a dangerous mission."

"Where's Suisen-san?" Sakura asked. "Considering how late we were, shouldn't she be here by now?"

"She's probably busy bespangling herself," Sasuke said. "I just hope she takes that necklace off, otherwise we'll be untangling her from bushes the whole way. She does know that we're walking to Yubin, right?"

"I hope so," Kakashi said.

Luckily they didn't have to wait long to find out as the lady in question strolled up. It did look as if she had given some thought to the 'walking' part of the equation, but the 'questionable roads' bit had obviously not gotten through to her. She was wearing a long green silky skirt, which fluttered quite fetchingly around her ankles but brushed much too close to the ground, a slinky sleeveless top in the same color except covered with sequins, and a wide-brimmed hat adorned with a lot of artificial flowers. She was also carrying an absolutely immense white leather purse, emblazoned boldly in gold with the name of its manufacturer.

Sasuke quietly edged around so that Sayuri's vision would be blocked by Naruto. He didn't want her thinking that sort of clothing was within the realms of good ninja taste. Little pink coats with hoods on them were quite good enough for her without any of that silly frippery.

"Kakashi-san...little ninja children," Ayumi greeted them. Sasuke glowered at the tone—did she think he was six? He'd like to see her take fifty-three and a half senbon at point-blank range and survive! "I'm ready to go."

Kakashi replied before either Sasuke or Naruto could, fortunately. "Very good, Suisen-dono," he said politely, although Sasuke had a suspicion he was smirking behind the mask. "I hope you will pardon the question, but what kind of shoes are you wearing?"

Ayumi arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow and carefully pulled her skirt up just enough for them to get a glimpse of white wedge heels with peeptoes and delicate leaf-shaped cutouts around the edges. "Paraada-san," she said, as if that explained everything. "His latest collection. You can't get anything like them in these ninja towns, of course."

"Of course," Kakashi said amiably. "Well, those should probably do, but we will be doing a lot of walking. Are you sure?"

"What, do you think I'm going to wear clogs?" Ayumi said with a haughty laugh.

Sasuke sighed and began counting backwards from twenty to keep himself from saying something that might lose them an expensive fee.

"I suppose not," Kakashi replied. "Do you have any luggage?"

"Yes," Ayumi replied. "Here, it's in this thing," she added, fishing a smallish scroll out of her purse and handing it to Kakashi. "That Anko woman did it for me when I left the hotel. Made the most awful sort of 'bang', too. Sparks and everything."

"Sensei," Sakura began, "containing seals don't usually—"

"Now that that's settled," Kakashi interrupted loudly, "We'll be off. Naruto, you take in front, Sasuke, Sakura, you two behind, Suisen-dono, you'll walk with me. Okay?"

"That should do very nicely," Ayumi purred, latching on to Kakashi's arm as the three genin took up their assigned places.

Sasuke sighed: this was going to be a very long mission. He just hated to think of what was going to happen when Ayumi noticed the baby...


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:  
>Things went marginally well for the first hour or so. Sayuri had fallen asleep shortly after they left the village, and the roads were well-maintained near Konoha, although Sasuke knew that would change soon as they got a bit further out.<p>

He had to feel a bit sorry for Kakashi, though. Ayumi was clinging tightly to his arm in a way that had to be cutting off circulation by now, and was talking very very fast in that shrill, loud, Ino-in-about-ten-years voice—Sasuke shuddered in remembrance of the few times Ino had managed to corner him at lunchtime. No matter how good the bentos she made were, it wasn't worth the headache.

Kakashi managed to put up with her prattling for another half hour before he gently detached her from his arm and said a few things about the importance of silence on the road that were not exactly true but got Ayumi to shut up, at least.

Unfortunately, now Ayumi had nothing to do and she started paying attention to the rest of them. Sasuke sighed as her gaze lit on him (or more specifically, Sayuri) and braced himself for the onslaught that was sure to be forthcoming.

Ayumi raised her perfectly curved eyebrows, casting a scathing glance over Sasuke and Sayuri (and for some strange reason Sakura as well). "What is that?" she asked, sounding as if she expected Sasuke to say something besides the obvious answer.

"A baby," Sasuke replied. She couldn't seriously not know that, so he assumed it was just some kind of power play on her part. If so, it hadn't been a very good one; Sasuke was experienced with that sort of thing.

Ayumi didn't say anything more to him, but he could hear her whispering to Kakashi, although he couldn't make out all of the words. "...a little young for that?" she finished.

Sasuke puzzled over that for a little while, even though Sakura had seemingly understood immediately, as she had suddenly turned bright pink and was pointedly not looking in his direction at all. He couldn't really think of anything that could get that kind of reaction from her...

Suddenly he nearly choked in horror, and joined Sakura in mutually ignoring each other for the next hour. This got a little tiresome after the first ten minutes or so, as Sasuke was beginning to get a bit of a cramp in his neck, so he traded places with Naruto, who was only too eager to walk with Sakura for a bit.

Now that he was out in front, Sasuke could scan around without the feedback from the other's chakra washing over him. He almost thought he caught a few wispy threads of chakra from someone he Did Not Want To Think About, but told himself he was just being paranoid. That didn't stop him from protectively wrapping his arms around Sayuri, however.

Ayumi didn't make any further remarks about Sayuri's presence (this was lucky for both her and Sasuke, as had she done so he very likely would have done something injurious to her and bearing repercussions for himself). Sasuke wasn't sure whether she had forgotten about her; Ayumi didn't seem quite air-headed enough for that. She definitely didn't know much about ninja villages, though, so maybe she just thought it was Bring Your Kid to Work Day.

Sasuke tried not to think about the implications of that. He liked Sayuri, sure, but she was temporary! Having a child of his own (very very far in the future, of course) was really a little much to think about.

Shortly after this, the roads started to get worse. At first all that was noticeable was the increased amount of grass and weeds growing up through the cracks between the stones, but soon the stones themselves began to show cracks and warps. Sasuke knew that whole pavement stones would be missing soon, and couldn't decide whether or not to hope Ayumi stepped in a hole and twisted one of her delicate little ankles.

He settled for not. It was a nice day, and he didn't need to be vindictive about what was probably a innocently meant if very stupid remark. Besides, he had to set a good example for Sayuri.

"How much farther is it, Kakashi-san?" Ayumi asked, after she had been struggling along for a while.

Kakashi shrugged. "If we keep up this up, we might be able to make it to Yubin before dark. We can stop if necessary, but it comes with an extra charge..."

"Let's just keep going," Ayumi said, increasing her pace until she had almost caught up with Sasuke.

This was not as impressive as it sounded, as Sasuke was practically ambling. He wasn't in the mood to go fast, and besides Sayuri was napping. He was pretty sure she would be hungry when she woke up, so he was trying to put that off as long as possible.

"What's your name?" Ayumi asked, as she came abreast of him. "I can't remember, but it began with an 'S' or something. Satoshi?"

It took Sasuke a second to realize she was talking to him, but luckily she didn't notice. "It's Sasuke." She definitely didn't know very much about ninjas if she didn't know who he was or what the fan symbol on his shirt meant. "Uchiha Sasuke."

"Oh. And who's this?" she continued, indicating Sayuri with one green-and-white striped fingernail.

"Sayuri," Sasuke replied. "And she's not mine, we're just taking care of her," he added, hoping that this would be the end of the conversation. Ayumi's voice wasn't quite as painful as Ino's but it was bringing back a lot of bad memories.

"I see..." Ayumi said. "Maybe I'll end up with one of those sometime," she went on, waving vaguely in Sayuri's direction. "That's why I'm travelling, you know, to get married." She sighed a little, and her gaze drifted over to Kakashi. Sasuke wondered what she saw in their annoying teacher but decided not to ask. "I really wanted to be an actress, you know, but family duties and all that—what else are you to do?"

Sasuke didn't have an answer for that question, of course. He was beginning to think that maybe Ayumi wasn't so bad after all when she patted him on the head. Patted him on the head, like a four-year-old!

Luckily for the continued business of the Konoha Bodyguard Service, by the time he whirled around, ready to deal out damage, Kakashi had managed to entice Ayumi away from Sasuke. He settled for kicking at several helpless rocks.

[A/N: I am quite unsure of the merits of this chapter, but I promise it will get more exciting soon!]


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

Things settled down a bit after that. Sakura seemed to have calmed down, so Sasuke went back to join her again. Naruto wasn't very pleased to have to be in the front again, as he knew that would attract more attention from Ayumi, but Sasuke stated quite firmly that it was his turn again and that was that.

Then Sayuri woke up.

Everything went all right for a little while; she was fussing a bit, but was much more content after Sasuke had fed her. Sakura also cheered up considerably as she started chattering to the baby—Sasuke still failed to see the point in this (even though he did it too, just not when anybody else was around), but Sakura didn't care about Sayuri's lack of conversational skills.

After a little while, Sayuri started fussing again.

"What's the matter?" Sakura said, crouching a little so that she was at Sayuri's eye level. "You can't be hungry after all that, and I don't think you need a change."

Sayuri continued to whimper, sounding very much as if she would soon begin properly crying. What was their client going to think, if they couldn't even take care of a baby?

"How about your butterfly?" Sakura suggested. "Let's get that for you, okay? It must have fallen down, I can't see it. Sasuke, hold still and let me get it out."

Sasuke complied. The others weren't that far ahead, and as they weren't going too fast anyway (however much Ayumi was struggling with the pace) Sasuke and Sakura would be able to catch up without any trouble. "What are you doing?" he asked after a moment, when Sakura still hadn't pulled her hand out of the mei tai.

"I can't find it," Sakura explained, sticking her hand farther in.

"Stop it, you're tickling!" Sasuke protested.

"Ooh, you're ticklish?" Sakura said with a mischievous grin.

"Sakura..."

"Fine, fine." The gleam in her eyes made Sasuke think that she had definitely filed that little bit of information away for further use, though. "I don't think it's in there. Did you put it in the bag while you were feeding her?"

"I don't think so," Sasuke said, as she pulled the bag off his shoulder and began searching through it. "Sayuri must have pushed it out when I wasn't paying attention."

"Looks like it," Sakura agreed, "it isn't in here."

Sayuri promptly began to cry, clearly distraught to hear of the loss of her beloved toy (either that or annoyed with Sakura for poking at her while looking for it, but she had the timing more correct for the former).

"I'll go back to look for it," Sasuke said. "You go meet up with the others. It shouldn't take very long."

"Okay," Sakura said. "But be careful, okay?"

Sasuke wasn't sure whether she meant that instruction for him or Sayuri, but it was nice to know that somebody cared, in any case.

Apart from Sayuri's unhappy crying, the forest was quiet as Sasuke traced his way back. He hadn't exactly been paying attention to where the toy was while they were walking, so he wasn't sure when it could have fallen out. It might have been knocked down while he was feeding her, but that would mean going most of the way back to the village.

Still, it was clear that Sayuri was not going to be easily consoled, so he quickened his steps, hoping to find the toy before the others got too far ahead.

Sayuri didn't like this, either, so Sasuke stopped to rock her for a bit, hoping to get her to settle down just a little. "Hey, shush, okay?" he whispered, his breathing ruffling up her reddish hair. "You'll scare off every bird in the forest if this keeps up."

This didn't faze Sayuri one bit, as she kept on crying. Giving up on quieting her down, Sasuke stood to begin looking for the toy again, then froze as he heard a rustling in the trees that was most definitely not birds flying away from a noisy infant.

"Who is there?" he demanded, crouching down to protect Sayuri with his body as he reached for a kunai.

That action had probably been somewhat pointless, he decided, as he was surrounded by six hooded shinobi with drawn weapons. There were more in the surrounding trees, as well; even alone he would have been hard pressed merely to get away without severe injuries, and with Sayuri to think about he didn't stand a chance.

"What do you want?" he said, stalling for time as he scanned around with the Sharingan for any avenue of escape. There was a space where he would only have to fight past two of these people to get clear, but that would still be at enormous risk to Sayuri.

"We've been waiting a long time for you to wander off by yourself," said the apparent leader of his mysterious assailants; all he could tell from her voice was that she was a woman, and most likely not from anywhere near Konoha by her accent. She hadn't exactly answered his question, but Sasuke could guess pretty well what was intended.

One of the unfortunate side effects of being the more vulnerable half of the only two survivors of one of the most powerful clans ever was that Sasuke had the dubious honor of being one of the top kidnapping targets of the world. While he had known about this for some time, he hadn't thought he had anything to worry about this close to his home village. "You're very bold, aren't you?"

The woman shrugged. "Your teacher's distracted by that flighty little ditz we set up for this escort, your girlfriend won't say anything about you being gone for at least an hour, your other teammate's an idiot, and you can't fight because you're hauling around some brat. Now put that knife down and take your weapons belt off, and don't try anything."

She really did seem to have thought everything out very well, so Sasuke complied. Sayuri started to cry again and he tried with limited success to shush her. The situation was bad enough without her calling attention to herself and making it worse.

"All right, let's go," the woman said. One of the underlings pulled Sasuke to his feet while another retrieved the weapons he had discarded. Sasuke started to protest as his headband was shoved down over his eyes, effectively blinding him, but there was little he could do about it as he was dragged off into the forest.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

Several hours later, Sasuke had no idea where he was other than very far away from where he had started out. At some point, he had been shoved into a wagon, so they must be on some kind of road, but he had lost all sense of direction during the roundabout trip through the forest.

Perhaps sensing Sasuke's tension, Sayuri began to fuss, and he tried to shush her without much success. These people—whoever they were—had taken away his bag of baby things, so he couldn't really do anything for Sayuri at the moment. He knew he wasn't the only one in the wagon, and he worried that Sayuri could get herself in serious trouble if they decided she was being too noisy.

Kakashi had to know he was gone by now; surely they would have noticed when they reached Yubin and he wasn't with them? Or had they been attacked as well?

...

Knowing that he would face the full extent of Konan's fearsome maternal wrath if he returned empty-handed, Itachi had risked hanging around the village in hopes that Sasuke and his team would leave on a mission. The baby would be much easier to retrieve from a disinterested babysitter than his slightly paranoid younger brother.

Thus, he was quite frustrated when he noticed Team 7 preparing to leave and readied himself to slip into the village as soon as they were gone, only to see Sasuke and Sakura running up with the baby as well.

He had guessed that this mission wouldn't exactly be easy, but this was really a bit much. He did have to feel a bit sorry for Kakashi, though, seeing the girl he was stuck escorting.

It was a simple bit of eavesdropping to figure out where they were going. Yubin was a smallish town a days journey away by a wooded road. As it seemed he was going to have take the direct approach if he ever wanted to retrieve the baby, at least it wouldn't be too hard to find a good ambush point on this route.

Rushing to get ahead of Team 7, even though they weren't going that fast, he chose a stretch of the road in the densest part of the forest, a little more than halfway to the town. He doubted that they would have run into any trouble before then and they would probably be bored and easily taken by surprise. If he played his cards right, he might be able to get the baby away from Sasuke without even being recognized.

He had a good few hours before Team 7 got this far, so he found a relatively comfortable tree that no insects had found first and settled down to wait. It had been a while since he had had much time to himself, and it was calm and peaceful in the quiet forest.

Eventually, he heard Team 7—or more specifically, Naruto—coming and readied himself for action.

Naruto came into view first; he really needed a few lessons on stealth, as he had been frightening birds away for at least three minutes. Kakashi was next, with that clingy woman still hanging on to him—Itachi was surprised that the older jounin permitted it, because it was making him very open to attack.

Sakura came after that. She seemed tense and edgy for some reason, and Itachi added another layer to his chakra masking as she cast a nervous glance over her shoulder. Sasuke and the baby would be in sight in another few seconds, and Itachi couldn't afford to let himself be given away.

After twenty seconds, Sasuke was still nowhere to be seen, and the rest of Team 7 was almost out of sight.

Annoying client or no, Kakashi was going to be in a_ lot_ of trouble if he had misplaced Itachi's younger brother.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura called as she ran to catch up with the others. "Are you sure we shouldn't look for him?"

"I'm sure Sasuke can take care of himself," Kakashi replied. "He's probably just digging for that silly toy in some bush. We can't afford to slow ourselves down, or we'll make Suisen-dono late for meeting her caravan. He'll catch up soon."

"Okay..." Sakura said, but she didn't sound very convinced.

Itachi frowned as he settled back into the tree. There was no point in attacking them if Sasuke wasn't with them; he would just have to start tracing back to where Sasuke was.

As soon as he was sure Team 7 was far enough away not to notice his chakra, he jumped down from the tree and began coursing along the road, trying to find the point where Sasuke had left the rest of the party.

He reached the point after only about thirty minutes, but at Team 7's slower pace it must have been a couple of hours since they had parted. This wasn't like Sasuke, to leave his teammates for so long; Itachi began to get a feeling that something was off as he backtracked Sasuke's chakra trail more carefully now.

Finally he reached a point on the trail where Sasuke had paused for several minutes, but even that chakra was almost cold, and Sasuke had retraced no further along the trail. Instead, his chakra became blurred by several other chakra signatures, seemingly headed west.

Itachi sighed as he prepared to pursue whoever had kidnapped his little brother. Couldn't something be easy for him for once? He had expected getting the baby back to be a little bit tricky, but this was just ridiculous.

...

Sasuke had finally gotten Sayuri to go back to sleep when the wagon rumbled to a stop. Sayuri shifted in the mei tai, and he rocked her gently, hoping fervently that she wouldn't wake up at the disturbance.

"Okay, we're here," the woman announced, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him out of the cart. The rest of her band of brigands had already scattered, although that did Sasuke little good by this point as he was pushed into a building.

"Noa-nee-chan!" someone exclaimed as Sasuke pushed the headband off of his eyes and looked around. "You're back!"

The woman who had just spoken was perched on what looked like a shop counter, and there were shelves all around crammed with scrolls and assorted weapons and artifacts. He'd been captured by black marketeers—if he couldn't escape or wasn't rescued there was no way this could end well.

"Hey, Yui-chan," Noa greeted the other woman. "Everything go all right while I was gone?"

"Sure, sure," Yui chirped, swinging her legs back and forth. Her light brown hair was tied into childish pigtails, but Sasuke had a feeling that she must be older than she looked. "So you really got him? I never thought you'd do it!"

"_And_ a freebie," Noa said, pushing her hood back. She and Yui looked exactly alike, except for the different clothing and hairstyles.

"Oh yeah, it's a baby!" Yui cried. "It's cute; what'll we do with it?"

"We'll decide that later," Noa replied, pulling Sasuke over to a door in the corner of the room and shoving him through into a small space. "So, any clients—"

Sasuke didn't hear the rest of what she said as the door slammed and locked behind him.

[A/N: Noa and Yui are OC's, but they have a tendency to turn up a lot in my stories. They're rather useful, and sort of fun, to me anyway.]


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

Sayuri was by now very fussy, what with the jar when Sasuke was dragged out of the wagon, and then being tossed in here with little care for her comfort. Besides that she was probably hungry, but Sasuke hadn't had a chance to ask for his baby bag (not that they'd be foolish enough to return it to him, especially once they found the explosive tags and ninja wire in the bottom).

The first order of business was definitely to get Sayuri out of the mei tai, but unfortunately it had been tied in the back and Sasuke didn't have much of an idea how to get out of it. Sighing as he attempted to reach the knot, Sasuke chided himself for not paying more attention when Sakura had been tying it. Also, it had been fastened securely enough that he couldn't remove Sayuri without taking the mei tai off first.

Eventually, with much contortion, he managed to loosen the knots in back enough that he could pull Sayuri out and set her on the concrete floor. With this done, there was enough room in the mei tai for him to wriggle out of it easily.

Sayuri began to cry as she lay on the cold hard floor, and Sasuke picked her up and patted her back gently as he looked around the room he had been locked in. It was approximately square, and about eight feet or so to a side. The walls, ceiling and door were practically papered with elaborate seals, and Sasuke could tell from what of them he could decipher that any jutsu attempted in here would be completely cancelled out or worse. The room was lit by one lightbulb in the center of the ceiling, which, since there was no furniture to block the light, was quite adequate. There was a blanket folded up in one of the far corners, and Sasuke moved to sit over there, leaning back against the wall with a sigh. "Well, we are kind of stuck, aren't we?"

Sayuri was quiet now, and Sasuke looked down at her to see her sleeping, her thumb in her mouth and a few tears still on her face. Sasuke didn't say anything more; if the baby was asleep he wasn't about to do anything that might change that. Hopefully Kakashi and the others would soon realize that something had happened to him. He hated feeling so trapped.

Itachi hurried west for a few hours before Sasuke's chakra signature became more clear. Once Sasuke had been successfully captured, some of the kidnapping party must have been dismissed, thus reducing the amount of feedback. Since Itachi knew Sasuke wouldn't just let himself be taken under any normal circumstances, the kidnappers must have used the baby against him. However, now that they (whoever that might have been) had Sasuke, they could decide that they didn't need the baby anymore. Itachi had to get there before they thought too much about that. If anything happened to her baby, Konan would _kill_ him! Itachi couldn't blame her either, as Konan's baby was to Konan what Itachi's brother was to him.

The trail continued to meander in a general westerly direction until it reached a small, dingy town. Itachi began to exercise caution as he approached the town; he didn't like the look of the place at all. There were few places of business, and most of those were poorly labelled, as if someone was trying to conceal what went on inside. All in all, it looked like it was probably stuffed with criminals.

Itachi was sure that anyone living in the town would spot a new face immediately, so he skulked around the outskirts for a bit, trying to figure out where Sasuke was now. Whoever had captured him was keeping him well hidden, and Itachi had no success. He would have to go for a rather more direct approach.

He was about to discard his Akatsuki cloak and hat when an idea came to him. It would certainly bear some risk, but was just as certainly his best chance of getting Sasuke and the baby out unscathed and without ruining the cover story he had been painstakingly cultivating for the past several years.

With no timepieces or windows, Sasuke had little idea how long he had been locked up before he heard voices outside the door. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but if they would just open the door he might stand a chance of getting out. All he needed was to get out of this room and he would be able to fight well enough to escape the rest of the way. There was Sayuri to think about, but it would be safer for her too if he could get out of here so it was worth a little risk.

Trying to call on the chakra he had left—the seals coating the walls seemed to be sapping it somewhat—Sasuke attempted to read the chakra signatures outside. He couldn't quite, but he figured that Yui and Noa were out there along with someone else. And that someone else...Sasuke still couldn't tell who it was, but he was getting a feeling that something very bad was going to happen.

Sayuri sighed and cooed in her sleep and Sasuke gently tightened his grip on her, stroking her fluffy reddish hair (auburn, he reminded himself, remembering the silly argument with Sakura). "Don't worry," he whispered, as much for himself as for her, "everything's going to be fine."

Then the door opened. Sasuke still couldn't get a good look at the man standing behind Noa and Yui until the shadowy figure stepped forward.

"And how are you today, little brother?" Itachi asked with cold evenness, glancing briefly around the tiny room before his crimson eyes met Sasuke's.


End file.
